I held several trainings in pharmaceutical/chemical industry introducing Origin 5.0, a tool for the treatment of scientific data comprising both, outstanding graphics features and very rich math functions, made by Microcal.

As I stated above, Origin 4.1 is the only reason why I would buy a PC. Microcal say (and they are quite right), that most experiments are run by a MS-DOS/Win computer, thus most data is acquired on such machines. Why change the operating system for the graphics ?

However ‚ if you have a Macintosh, you should really not think about changing systems for this one reason. Get someone to register your data on the PC and import them to IgorPro from WaveMetrics, the best on the Macintosh to do the same (or even a better ;-) job.
Another possibility is to use a DOS emulating software (quite fast since the outcome of Apples wonderful G3 series ;-). Ideally, if you work on a Mac, you are familiar with both operating systems and do the data-exchange between the different OSes (MAC, linux/unix, DOS/Win) without any problem (if you want to know, how I do ‚ mail me).

I have prepared a page with example files, that was created to support a series of lectures I gave at I.C.M.C.B. to introduce the main features and philosophy of Origin 4.1.